For years the I-Team has been reporting about problems involving for-profit colleges.

Now, one of the Bay area's largest for-profit colleges is for sale as federal officials investigate alleged academic and financial irregularities.

A former administrator at a local Everest University campus is speaking out exclusively to the I-Team about what went wrong when she worked there and what it means to students.

"This is where it all happened,” said Mamie Andrews, returning for the first time to the Largo campus of Everest University, where she once served as the Academic Dean.

“When you're back where it all happened, it's like revisiting the pain,” she said, choking back tears.

Andrews worked for a total of four years at Corinthian Colleges, Inc. campuses before she quit in late 2011.

Corinthian is the parent company of Everest University.

“They sell hopes, they sell dreams and they sell promises. And they don't deliver on any of it,” Andrews said. “It was all about the money. It's never really about the education. The education is just a byproduct.“

The U.S. Department of Education is forcing Corinthian to sell its Florida campuses, as the department investigates faulty job placement numbers and inflated grades and attendance claims.

“There have been people who have graduated from Everest who could not read and who could not write,” Andrews said.

Andrews says recruiters went after anyone who qualified for federal government grants and loans, just about anywhere.

“Anywhere you could recruit a person, you went there, whether that was a base, under a bridge, in front of a welfare office,” she said.

She says many of those students ended up saddled with massive amounts of debt.

“I liken it to a noose around their neck,” Andrews said.

Dianne Harrell completed a paralegal program at Everest University, but never got her diploma.